Does feel like a Russian revolution is possible.
A little revolution now and then is a healthy thing, don’t you think?
Fentanyl Distributed in Hawai‘i Now Made to Look Like Rainbow-Colored Candies
Hawai‘i’s High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Agency issued a drug threat bulletin that a shipment of suspected powdered fentanyl was smuggled into and distributed on Hawai‘i Island along with a large amount of rainbow-colored counterfeit pills containing the suspected synthetic opioid.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency reported in August 2022 that law enforcement partners seized brightly-colored fentanyl and fentanyl pills in 18 states. Dubbed “rainbow fentanyl” in the media, officials say this trend appears to be a new method used by drug cartels to sell highly addictive and potentially deadly fentanyl made to look like candy to children and young people.
The suspected powdered fentanyl has resulted in a high number of overdoses, with multiple fatalities, DEA stated. The federal agency describes fentanyl as a synthetic opioid that is 80-100 times stronger than morphine.
The bulletin was issued to raise community awareness and advise first responders, substance abuse users and their families to carry and be prepared to administer naloxone, a nasal spray that reverses the effects of an overdose. Law enforcement and first responders also should have access to necessary personal protective equipment.
Watching the Hunt for Red October for the umpteenth time, well, just because. It’s such a quotable movie. Love Sean Connery in this one.
State Fines US Navy Nearly $9M For Sewage Discharges
The U.S. Navy is being fined nearly $9 million because of discharges of sewage into state waters.
The state Department of Health assessed an $8,776,250 penalty based on 766 counts of discharging pollutants that exceeded permit limits, 17 counts of unauthorized bypass and 212 counts of operation and maintenance failures at the NAVFAC Hawai‘i Wastewater Treatment Plant near Pearl Harbor.
The Health Department issued a notice of violation and order to the Navy to address a myriad deficiencies at the wastewater treatment facility. The department said numerous operation and maintenance issues led to repeated discharges of untreated or partially treated sewage.
According to the Health Department, violations include:
- Discharging effluent that exceeded Enterococci bacteria and other contaminant limits.
- Unauthorized bypass of sand filters because of leaving a bypass valve open.
- Unauthorized bypass of sand filters because of poor operation and maintenance.
- Failure to operate and maintain aeration basin treatment units.
- Failure to operate and maintain sand filter bypass valve.
- Failure to operate and maintain ultraviolet disinfection systems.
- Failure to operate and maintain critical final effluent pumps.
“The Navy’s failure to properly operate and maintain this wastewater treatment plant led to the pollution of state waters,” Deputy Director of Environmental Health Kathleen Ho said in a press release. “We are taking action to protect our state’s water resources and to hold the Navy accountable to make critical repairs and prevent a potential catastrophic failure of the facility.”
The state also ordered corrective actions be taken to address critical violations, including:
- Assessing the condition of the wastewater facility at Pearl Harbor and repairing issues/items identified from the assessment.
- Repairing the ultraviolet disinfection system to ensure adequate backup capabilities.
- Identifying and clearing all backlogged preventive and corrective maintenance.
- Exercising all valves to ensure full functionality.
- Conducting a structural integrity assessment of the aeration basins and completing repairs.
- Obtaining a root cause analysis for recent effluent pump failures.
- Revising and implementing an updated operations and maintenance plan based on an assessment and plan developed to optimize operations and process control protocols for the facility.
The Navy can submit a request for a hearing and contest the notice of violation and order within 20 days of its receipt.
Click here to download a copy of the notice of violation and order.
M 4.5 Quake Rumbles Near Kīlauea Volcano
A 4.5 magnitude earthquake rattled the southwest rift zone of Kīlauea volcano this afternoon. No tsunami is expected, according to the National Weather Service.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the tumbler was approximately 5.5 miles east-northeast of Pahala at a depth of about 20 miles.
Unusual Ebola strain kills 23 in Uganda; no vaccines, treatments available
Enlarge / Health measures are taken at Mubende Regional Referral Hospital after an outbreak of Ebola in Uganda. (credit: Getty | Anadolu Agency)
Health officials in Uganda are scrambling to catch up to a burgeoning Ebola outbreak caused by a lesser-seen Ebolavirus species called Sudan virus (SUDV), for which there is no vaccine or treatment.
Information so far suggests that the outbreak response efforts may be three weeks behind the initial spread of SUDV, which has an incubation period of up to 21 days and a case fatality rate between 41 percent and 100 percent. So far, 36 cases (18 confirmed, 18 probable) have been identified, with 23 deaths. Health officials have listed a total of 223 contacts.
But that number is likely an undercount. Several transmission chains have not been tracked, and some health facilities that saw Ebola patients did not follow optimal infection control measures, the World Health Organization warned. Further, because of the delayed recognition of the outbreak, some patients were buried in traditional ceremonies with large gatherings that could have allowed the virus to transmit further.
Micro.blog seems to be running slow today. It not my connection, tested it and quickly loaded highly graphical sites like ESPN and CNN. Will try again later.
Police Investigate Shooting Incident in East Hawai‘i that Left 1 Person Injured
Authorities have initiated an attempted murder investigation following a shooting incident in Puna that left one person injured on Monday night.
Hawai‘i Police were called shortly after 9:15 p.m. after receiving a report of a man being shot. According to an HPD press release, the 42-year-old man called police dispatch reporting that he had been shot and was driving himself to get treatment.
Police and Hawai‘i Fire Department personnel met the victim in the parking lot of a convenience store in Mountain View. He was then transported by ambulance to the Hilo Medical Center with potentially life-threatening injuries. He was admitted and later upgraded to stable condition.
While officers were responding to the initial call, police dispatch received another call from a male party who reported he had been involved in a shooting incident outside his residence on Waimaka O Pele Road, in Mountain View. According to the release, the man said he had been shot at and then returned fire.
Police responded to the residence on Waimaka O Pele Road and arrested 40-year-old Shane Fann. He was not injured.
Area I Criminal Investigation Section personnel responded to the scene to continue this investigation.
A search warrant was drafted for Fann’s residence and will be served later today.
Police are asking anyone with information on this incident, to contact the police department’s non-emergency number at 808-935-3311, or Detective Casey Cabral at 808-961-2384 or email him at Casey.Cabral@hawaiicounty.gov.
Tipsters who prefer to remain anonymous may call the islandwide Crime Stoppers number at 808-961-8300 and may be eligible for a reward of up to $1,000.
Man Reported Missing in 2020 Is Found and Arrested for Outstanding Warrant
UPDATE: Hawaiʻi Island police have located 47-year-old Derek Lee Kalani Aiona, who was reported missing in August 2020.
Aiona was located located in good health at a residence in Kea‘au on Sept. 25, 2022. Upon being located, Aiona was arrested for an outstanding electronic traffic warrant.
ORIGINAL STORY:
Big Island police are again asking the public to help with finding a man who’s been missing for more than two years.
The Hawai‘i Police Department says 47-year-old Derek Lee Kalani Aiona was reported missing in August 2020. He is thought to reside in the Puna district; however, he has no known permanent address.
Aiona is described as 5 feet, 8 inches tall, weighing 220 pounds, with short black hair and brown eyes.
Police interviewed witnesses who report they recently were in contact with Aiona and he is well, but avoiding police contact. Aiona also has an outstanding traffic warrant issued in December 2020.
Anyone who might have information about Aiona’s whereabouts is asked to call the police department’s nonemergency line at 808-935-3311 or contact Detective Blaine Morishita with the Area I Criminal Investigation Section at 808-961-2385 or via email at Blaine.Morishita@hawaiicounty.gov.
Those who prefer to remain anonymous can call Crime Stoppers at 808-961-8300.
Better than JPEG? Researcher discovers that Stable Diffusion can compress images
Enlarge / These jagged, colorful blocks are exactly what the concept of image compression looks like. (credit: Benj Edwards / Ars Technica)
Last week, Swiss software engineer Matthias Bühlmann discovered that the popular image synthesis model Stable Diffusion could compress existing bitmapped images with fewer visual artifacts than JPEG or WebP at high compression ratios, though there are significant caveats.
Stable Diffusion is an AI image synthesis model that typically generates images based on text descriptions (called "prompts"). The AI model learned this ability by studying millions of images pulled from the Internet. During the training process, the model makes statistical associations between images and related words, making a much smaller representation of key information about each image and storing them as "weights," which are mathematical values that represent what the AI image model knows, so to speak.
When Stable Diffusion analyzes and "compresses" images into weight form, they reside in what researchers call "latent space," which is a way of saying that they exist as a sort of fuzzy potential that can be realized into images once they're decoded. With Stable Diffusion 1.4, the weights file is roughly 4GB, but it represents knowledge about hundreds of millions of images.
Apple no longer replacing entire iPad mini 6 just to swap the battery
Enlarge / Apple is willing to actually replace the battery on its newest, smallest iPad, with potentially more to follow, according to a MacRumors report. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)
Replacing a battery can be fraught with peril, at least for the iPad. Repair shops and experienced DIY-ers know this, and Apple seems to acknowledge it, usually giving customers seeking battery swaps a new iPad instead. Starting soon, with at least one model, Apple and its repair techs could start actually replacing an iPad's battery instead of sending it into the refurbishment ether.
A report at MacRumors claims that Apple is issuing a new policy for the iPad mini 6 (i.e., the 2021 iPad mini), allowing repair centers (where devices are shipped for more in-depth service) to replace just the battery, rather than provide a Whole Unit Replacement (WUR) from existing or refurbished stock. MacRumors states that "other iPads may follow in the coming weeks and months," without specifics.
Replacing the battery on an iPad requires removing the screen, and that's tricky on almost all of them. Apple's proprietary repair tools, sized to each device, may be easier to use than using hand tools at home. But there's an unavoidable physics issue of having to apply strong suction or prying force to a long, wide, and thin display. The sixth-generation mini iPad, being the smallest of them, likely represents a device with the highest success rate of screen removal.
Hawai‘i Fire Crews Smother Small Brush Fire Near Haena Beach
Suppression efforts continue today after Hawai‘i Fire crews spotted a brush fire near Haena Beach in Kea‘au after returning from a reported water rescue Monday afternoon.
According to a HFD press release, crews aboard Chopper 1 responded to the blaze, approximately 500 yards south of the beach, at 4:42 p.m.
The chopper returned to quarters to pick up the Bambi Bucket for water drops. According to the release, Chopper 1 returned to initiate fire suppression. Additional personnel proceeded to fire with hand tools as fire was inaccessible to HFD vehicles.
Upon arrival, it was determined that the 30-by-50-foot fire was inaccessible to the responding units, which were ultimately canceled. According to the release, a landing zone was set up for the chopper and air crews conducted bucket drops until the aircraft needed refueling.
A nightwatch remained at the scene till 8 p.m. to address minor flare-ups. Suppression efforts will continue today with Co 5 personnel.
Meta disrupted China-based propaganda machine before it reached many Americans
China’s ability to influence American politics by manipulating social media platforms has been a topic of much scrutiny ahead of the midterm elections, and this week has marked some progress toward mitigating risks on some of the most popular US platforms.
US President Joe Biden is currently working on a deal with China-based TikTok—often regarded as a significant threat to US national security—with the one goal of blocking potential propaganda or misinformation campaigns. Now today, Meta, owner of Facebook and Instagram, shared a report detailing the steps it took to remove the first “Chinese-origin influence operation” that Meta has identified attempting “to target US domestic politics ahead of the 2022 midterms.”
In the press release, Meta Global Threat Intelligence Lead Ben Nimmo joined Meta Director of Threat Disruption David Agranovich in describing the operation as initiated by a “small network.” They said that between fall 2021 and September 2022, there were four “largely separate and short-lived” efforts launched by clusters of “around half a dozen” China-based accounts, which targeted both US-based conservatives and liberals using platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
Possible Missing Diver in Kea’au, Hawai’i Island Police Investigating
Hawai‘i Island police are investigating a possible missing diver last seen in waters near the cliffs at the end of Beach Road in Hawaiian Paradise Park in Kea‘au.
On Sept. 26, police and Hawai‘i Fire Department personnel responded to Beach Road off Maku‘u Drive for a report of a male who was last seen approximately 300 yards off-shore sometime after 1 p.m.
Witnesses reported the man had a light-colored buoy with a red rope attached. Witnesses later lost sight of the man.
Witnesses described the diver as local, possibly in his 40s, with short dark-colored hair, dark-colored shorts, with a tattoo on his back. He was reportedly wearing a mask, fins and had a fish bag.
The Hawai‘i Fire Department helicopter conducted an aerial search of the water and coastline, but were unable to locate anyone. A buoy was recovered from the water, and witnesses stated it appeared to be the one they saw with the diver.
Police did not locate any vehicle in the area that may belong to the man.
Police ask anyone who may have information about this case to call the police department’s non-emergency number at 808-935-3311, Det. Kimo Keliipaakaua of the Area I Criminal Investigation Section at 808-961-2375 or email Kimo.Keliipaakaua@hawaiicounty.gov.
Apple backtracks, will extend Stage Manager multitasking support to older iPads
Enlarge / True external display support is coming to M1-powered iPads in iPadOS 16. (credit: Apple)
When Apple delayed iPadOS 16 in August, one of the primary culprits was the new "Stage Manager" multitasking feature. Stage Manager was meant to extend a new multi-window multitasking model to the iPad, but developers and people who cover Apple for a living have been complaining about stability and unpredictable behavior for months, problems that were still present even in recent betas. Controversially, the feature also required a recent M1-powered iPad Pro or Air to work.
In the beta of iPadOS 16.1 shipped today, Apple is narrowing Stage Manager's scope and adjusting its system requirements. According to an Apple statement provided to Engadget, the company "worked hard to find a way to deliver a single screen version [of Stage Manager]" for users of the 2018- and 2020-model iPad Pros.
These models have less RAM and a less-powerful processor than the M1 iPad Pros and the fourth-generation iPad Air. But with their four efficiency cores and four performance cores, both the A12X and A12Z chips were clearly dry-runs for the M1, and they're still powerful enough to run iPadOS and its apps well—it's nice to see them pick up support for Stage Manager, too.
FCC advances plan to require blocking of spam texts from bogus numbers
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | B4LLS)
The Federal Communications Commission today released a plan to require mobile carriers to block a wide range of illegal text messages.
"In this Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), we propose to require mobile wireless providers to block illegal text messages, building on our ongoing work to stop illegal and unwanted robocalls," the FCC order said. "Specifically, we propose to require mobile wireless providers to block texts, at the network level, that purport to be from invalid, unallocated, or unused numbers, and numbers on a Do-Not-Originate (DNO) list." These texts "are highly likely to be illegal," the FCC said.
The NPRM seeks public comment on the plan. Once the NPRM is published in the Federal Register, there will be 30 days for comments and another 15 days for reply comments. After that, the FCC can draft new requirements for mobile carriers and set up a final vote.
Early-adopter tax is in full force for the first batch of AM5 motherboards
Enlarge / The MSI MEG X670E Godlike raises interesting questions, like, "could God make a motherboard so expensive that even He could not afford it?" (credit: MSI)
Building a PC around a new processor is expensive at the best of times, and that's triple-true of AMD's new Ryzen 7000 chips. AMD has started with its $300-and-up high-end chips, leaving mid-range options until next year. The CPUs only support DDR5 RAM, which is still more expensive than DDR4 at the same capacities. And the first round of motherboards that include the new AM5 CPU socket are here, and they're pretty expensive.
The cheapest motherboard currently available from the likes of Newegg and Micro Center is the ASRock X670E PG Lightning, which, despite being the least expensive motherboard available, is an X670E board that will support PCIe 5.0 GPUs when they eventually arrive (even the newly announced GeForce RTX 4000-series still uses PCIe 4.0). The motherboard is missing a few features we like to see—no built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, limited audio outputs, relatively small heatsinks for the voltage-regulator modules (VRMs) and other components—but it does have four M.2 SSD slots of varying speeds and plenty of hookups for case fans and front USB ports.
If it's something you care about, the cheapest X670E board with Wi-Fi is also one of ASRock's, the X670E Pro RS, available for $280 at Newegg and Micro Center.
Intel: “Moore’s law is not dead” as Arc A770 GPU is priced at $329
Enlarge / The Arc A770 GPU, coming from Intel on October 12, starting at $329. (credit: Intel)
One week after Nvidia moved forward with some of its highest graphics card prices, Intel emerged with splashy news: a price for its 2023 graphics cards that lands a bit closer to Earth.
Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger took the keynote stage on Tuesday at the latest Intel Innovation event to confirm a starting price and release date for the upcoming Arc A770 GPU: $329 on October 12.
That price comes well below last week's highest-end Nvidia GPU prices but is meant to more closely correlate with existing GPUs from AMD and Nvidia in the $300 range. Crucially, Intel claims that its A770, the highest-end product from the company's first wave of graphics cards, will compare to or even exceed the Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti, which debuted last year at $399 and continues to stick to that price point at most marketplaces.